


The Arrangement

by mandykaysfic



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alien Culture, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1202821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandykaysfic/pseuds/mandykaysfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With all the people involved in Denobulan marriages it is sometimes better to come to an arrangement than wait for love. </p>
<p>Every husband has three wives. Each of those wives has three husbands, who have three wives, who have three....</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Arrangement

“How is the installation proceeding?” Phlox looked across the table at his second wife as she cautiously tasted the soup. 

“It should be up and running by mid-morning.” Feezal examined the clear liquid that remained on her spoon and decided that although the flavor was unexpectedly spicy it was not unpleasant. She thoughtfully sipped again and then smiled up at her husband. “You will have four additional crew trained in the use of the neutron microscope before I return home, but that’s not all I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Go on.” 

“It’s Rala. She wants to bond again.”

“Yes, I know. She told me in her last communication.” Phlox pictured his pretty little third wife and smiled. She’d collapsed when she’d lost her second husband some time ago, but had still pulled herself together enough to encourage him to think of his profession and take the posting on the Enterprise. Jazon, her first, had been all she’d wanted or needed to supply support at the time.

“She has a proposal. If you agree, she’d like to take one from the Enterprise as her third. She worries about you out here on your own, and I must say I’m inclined to agree with her. Jazon knows your preferences as well as his own - he trusts you to choose someone compatible with them. Rala, well, you know how cautious she’s become. She wants me to check out any suitable candidates. How do you feel about Commander Tucker?”

Phlox blinked. Feezal was always direct; that was one of the things he liked about her. “We would both be absent for long periods. She would have only Jazon.”

“She’s still fragile, Phlox. The joining, it’s more mental than physical for now. He’s enough for her for the time being. In time though….”

“Hmm. It would be good to have family on board.”

“So, about this Tucker? ‘Trip’, I think he called himself?”

Feezal’s eyes sparkled, and Phlox chuckled. “I think Trip interests you more than he would interest Rala.”

“Well…” Feelzal drawled and then laughed in agreement. “He’s quite the -,” and she gestured expressively. “Do you have any suggestions or preferences? We could conduct some trials. I’ll check for compatibility with Rala; you can check your own, if you haven’t already,” she eyed him thoughtfully, “and then we can get together to compare results and perhaps run a final trial together. I’m here for four more days.”

“Always the scientist, my Feezal.”

“What would you have me do? Just choose some random member of the crew and be done with it?”

“No, no, no. One should not leave such a serious decision to chance. What did Jennet have to contribute?” 

“She is content to leave things up to you and me. She is currently embroiled in the machinations between Brayz and Whil.”

Phlox winced. His first still meddled where she shouldn’t. The antics of Jennet’s second husband and his third wife still had the power to induce a rating-ten headache in him, even at this distance.

“So, I have taken the liberty of consulting your computer, and combined with a few observations of my own, I’ve made a list of prospective candidates. Of course you may add to or subtract from it as you see fit.” Feezal put down her spoon and reached across the table. She stroked the back of her husband’s hand. “We worry about you, Phlox. Your communications home are all medical and friendly, but you never mention anything personal. I refuse to believe you’ve gone this long without sex. And don’t mention that bat of yours; it is not a suitable substitute. Nor are those things in the jar, the ones with the suckers.”

Phlox closed his mouth. She was not going to let him get a word in for the next few minutes, even to reassure her that her concerns regarding the bat were groundless. He tuned her out even as he wondered who she had placed on her list besides Tucker. Tucker – Trip – he thought, was an insightful choice. Intelligent, resourceful, friendly, possessed of a keen sense of humor and, for a Terran, attractive. Not to mention Phlox was well aware Trip was bisexual and open to non-human relationships. Trip would be an eminently suitable candidate to join with them.

“ – Reed. Are you listening to me, Phlox? You’re not paying me the least attention. Wait! You’re not still fixated on that bat, are you?” A hand waved in front of his face and bright eyes peered into his. “Oh my! I recognize that look. You’re thinking about Commander Tucker, aren’t you?”

He tried a dismissive wave of the hand, but his beloved Feezal knew him all too well and he wrenched his mind away from the lines of Trip Tucker’s muscles. His sterno-cleido-mastoids emphasized his throat in a way that was particularly mouthwatering. Then there was the rhomboid group; the way they pulled his scapulae in to his spine, straightening his posture and drawing the eye to the curves of his shoulders…. Part of Phlox’s brain finally supplied him with the last part of his wife’s conversation. “Lieutenant Reed, you said?”

“He is the Armory Officer, yes?” 

“Yes, but I don’t know that he’d be suitable. You certainly wouldn’t be able to collect any data on him.” At Feezal’s questioning expression he elaborated, “He doesn’t participate in sexual relations with women.”

“Maybe Rala will never want -. No, you’re quite right. He wouldn’t be suitable.”

Which was quite a shame in Phlox’s opinion. The lieutenant had rather arresting quadriceps. And his biceps were very nicely defined. Phlox was drawn to anatomically pleasing specimens of many species.

“Perhaps his friend then? Mister Zabel, I believe is his name.”

“No. Zabel is already in a relationship.”

“Why not go straight to the top and approach Captain Archer. Only the best for the family of Phlox, hmmm? Or that lush young man that pilots the Enterprise. I realize he’s practically the same age as Metis, but Rala -.”

“Feezal!” Phlox spluttered incoherently.

“Very well. You make a suggestion since you don’t like any of mine. One person does not a sample make, even if we test him separately and together. Anyway, I’ve only met a handful of the crew. You know them all.”

Phlox turned his attention back to his soup. “Eat up, my dear, while I consider the matter.”

By the time they pushed empty dessert plates to the side of the table, Phlox had selected four of the Enterprise crew whose psychological profiles indicated they would not be averse to his proposal, but he refused to approach his first target that evening. Michael Rostov, Tucker’s assistant in Engineering, was on the late shift and it would be prudent to wait until he was off duty.

“Well, my beloved, in that case, I am off to find Mr Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker.”

“Go with my blessing and good luck,” said Phlox, and raised his glass to her. Much luck, he murmured to himself and called back a satisfying series of images depicting the best Trip Tucker’s muscle groups, as well as Feezal, who had some nice muscle groups of her own. Comparative anatomy had always been one of his best subjects and Feezal’s visit would be the ideal time to review it.

END


End file.
